It’s been widely pointed out by liberals that much of the discussion of fiscal issues conducted by supposedly “neutral” reporters actually does take sides in a pernicious way. It often treats it as a given that near term deficit reduction is a good thing — sometimes even cheerleading for that outcome – when in fact there is an actual policy dispute over this point, with many arguing that immediate deficit reduction is destructive to the recovery, and that dealing with the deficit should be deferred until the economy is stronger.

The nation’s unemployment rate would probably be nearly a point lower, roughly 6.5 percent, and economic growth almost two points higher this year if Washington had not cut spending and raised taxes as it has since 2011, according to private-sector and government economists.

After two years in which President Obama and Republicans in Congress have fought to a draw over their clashing approaches to job creation and budget deficits, the consensus about the result is clear: Immediate deficit reduction is a drag on full economic recovery.

Now it’s true that Obama and Democrats are heavily complicit in the 2011 decision to agree to a big deficit cutting deal that continues to harm us to this day (though it’s an open question whether Obama had any choice). And it’s also true that Obama and Dems agreed to end the payroll tax holiday, another drag on the recovery.

But the simple fact remains that even if Obama continues to flirt with deficit-obsessed rhetoric and continues to push for some spending cuts, he wants more stimulus spending and wants deficit reduction to be balanced via higher revenues from the wealthy, while Republicans are pushing solely for still more spending cuts. The Times comes as close as possible to flatly stating that one side’s approach is far more threatening to the recovery than the other’s is:

In all this time, the president has fought unsuccessfully to combine deficit reduction, including spending cuts and tax increases, with spending increases and targeted tax cuts for job-creation initiatives in areas like infrastructure, manufacturing, research and education. That is a formula closer to what the economists propose. But Republicans have insisted on spending cuts alone and smaller government as the key to economic growth.

The key question is how prominent Dem Senators on the committee, such as Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, will vote on the amendments. On the one hand, they may worry about killing the legislation; on the other, it’s hard to imagine them voting No, given how much that would anger and alienate an important Dem constituency.

* Broad support for gay marriage — but not among Republicans: Even as conservatives continue to threaten to sink immigration reform over LGBT protections, a new Post/ABC News poll finds that 55 percent of voters support allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally. While 62 percent of independents support gay marriage, only 33 percent of Republicans do, while 64 percent remain opposed — again underscoring GOP isolation on this issue. Similarly, 62 percent of moderates support gay marriage — while 62 percent of conservatives oppose it.

* Overwhelming support for Jason Collins’ coming out: The Post poll also finds a large majority of Americans, 68 percent, supports NBA center Jason Collins’ decision to publicly announce that he is gay, making him the first male major team sport player to do so. Support is even more overwhelming in the 18-39 group — 79 percent — again reminding us of the degree to which support for gay rights is generationally driven.

And that’s why aggressive scrutiny of Gomez right now may prove important in the race. Today the Boston Globe reports that Gomez claimed a nearly-$300,000 tax deduction in exchange for leaving the façade of his home untouched — which he would have had to do anyway because of local landmark laws. The IRS later classified this sort of maneuver as one of its “Dirty Dozen tax scams.”

Short version: We now know some officials thought the embassy attack was a terrorist attack from Day One — and the administration’s initial assessment that it wasn’t was unquestionably wrong in the face of increasingly clear evidence to the contrary. But there’s still no evidence that the administration’s public conclusions, which it was reaching in real time, didn’t represent the consensus view of the intelligence community, or that the administration deliberately gamed them for political reasons.

Hicks said he thought a flyover by U.S. jets could have deterred the second of the two attacks that night, but he declined to question the judgment of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has said there was no way to get the fighters there in time….He undermined one of Issa’s claims — that Clinton had rejected an increase in security for the Libya facilities — when he agreed that the secretary of state’s name appears on all cables, even if she doesn’t write them. Hicks did have some damning things to say about the State Department trying to block him from cooperating with Issa’s committee. But that wasn’t quite the evidence Issa had promised: that politics drove the administration’s response to Benghazi.

Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.

To pause and restart automatic updates, click "Live" or "Paused". If paused, you'll be notified of the number of additional comments that have come in.

Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments, as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.